Jesse Williams and Taylour Paige Open Up About Their First Time Meeting, Acting, And More

Actors Jesse Williams and Taylour Paige share how they met and how their love has grown over the years in GQ‘s issue.

Three years together now, the two are opening up about the day they first locked eyes on one another. Williams described it as a “this rom-com effect.” Williams says he was at his own Emmys party when Paige came in wearing a glamorous red dress. “I parted the red seas in my red dress. I looked like the emoji,” she said.

Williams said he didn’t know who she was but wanted to, and that’s when he made it his mission to introduce himself. “I was in the middle of a conversation with a very close friend, and she walked by. Everything got quiet. I stopped that conversation and said, ‘I’ll be right back.’ I just zoomed in on her. The rest of the night, we were this close to each other, talking, laughing, dancing, and ended up together in conversation until six in the morning.” But, alas. Paige said she’d had her gaze set on him first. “Little did he know, I had spotted him first.”

After that first night, the two began seeing each other very frequently. Their mission was to stay out of the spotlight. “Let’s be honest, I have a lot of press around my personal life,” Williams said. “To go out is very likely to be photographed and declare something between me and another person who I’m just getting to know. I was very protective of not putting her through that and putting myself through that.”

Today, the couple who are working in Hollywood together, though they’ve yet to share a screen. Some of their work includes helping one another with self-tapes. “We did a tape for him until 4 a.m. a couple weeks ago,” Paige says with a laugh. “At first he was super resistant, like, ‘I’m not doing it like that.’ It was funny, because you could see his ego fighting, then him surrendering, realizing, ‘You want me to win.’ We’re both really honest with one another. Jesse will be like, ‘This is boring.’ Or I’ll tell him, ‘I don’t believe anything you’re saying. Stop with that breath that you’re doing, it’s so actor-y.'”

Williams said he’s also still very involved in fighting the Black struggle. “I’ve been holding pretty tight my whole life to Black liberation and the work,” he says. “I’ve said it many times, but you can’t pour from an empty cup.” All-in-all, the two said what’s most important is “preserving their individuality.” During the pandemic, the couple said the time together has been a “high-concentration hyper boost” for their understanding of one another, GQ reports. “We make up where the other lacks,” Paige said. “So where Jesse is structured and organized—although he still can be more organized…” Williams chimes in, “See what I’m dealing with here?” Paige comes back and says, “I think being in a relationship is almost impossible.”